Monday, January 21, 2013

I Consider My Stove This Morning

The faucet was dripping this morning. Our taps are wearing out. We have to crank them way down to stop the flow of water. I gave the cold water tap a hard crank to shut it off, and then I put my pot of water on the stove. In the morning, even the sound of the stove igniting is loud. You can hear the tick tick tick of the electric ignition, the flowing of the gas, and then the whoosh of flame. By afternoon, these sounds will have been absorbed into the regularity of life.

There are times when the stove will not light. It's just the sound of flowing gas, the smell of the gas, the ticking of the ignition, but no flame. If another burner is free, I use it and hope it works. If not, I fetch the matches. Sometimes a burner on partially lights. Flame comes out most of the holes but not all of them. I bend down and blow on the burner to scoot the flame around, and that does it.

When I went to bed last night, I did not think I would wake up in the morning and consider how intimate I've become with my stove. How many times have I scrubbed the stovetop? How many more times have I bent down to adjust a knob, an eye on the flame? Sometimes I pull the knobs off to give them a good scrub. I do this three times a year at most. It's not necessary to do it more often. Regular contact with my fingers polishes them.